By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
BALTIMORE — Monday’s appellate ruling was another procedural win for Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming, but it did not resolve the ultimate merits of the records dispute. Baltimore City Hall has built a case of its own against the watchdog, and it goes well beyond legal arguments over the Maryland Public Information Act.
“Baltimore City Hall has built a case of its own against the watchdog, and it goes well beyond legal arguments over the Maryland Public Information Act.”
The city’s “concerning pattern” letter
On Aug. 27, the Scott administration released a letter from Chief of Staff J.D. Merrill and Deputy Solicitor Stephen Salsbury alleging a “concerning pattern” of overreach by Cumming’s office, filed as an exhibit in the appellate case. Written in response to an unpublished OIG investigation of a senior city employee, the letter claims Cumming had access to draft city budget documents in 2025 while she was lobbying for a staffing increase for her office. It also says a Cumming social media post in early 2026 “closely tracked” internal legal advice given to a city employee, posted just one day after that advice was delivered.
The employee at the center of that investigation had reported to city technology officials that Cumming’s office had access to their communications and documents, according to the letter. Cumming’s office responded by opening a probe, which found the employee violated the city’s administrative manual and ethics ordinance.
Cumming has since publicly pushed back on the administration’s framing. In a Sept. 9 report, she disputed the characterization of her office’s access as improper surveillance, quoting from the senior employee’s own emails. MDBayNews was not able to independently verify the technical explanation she reportedly gave for how the access occurred; that detail should be treated as unconfirmed pending direct review of her report. The administration has not withdrawn its allegations.
“The administration has not withdrawn its allegations.”
An AI image and a racism complaint
The dispute took a sharper turn in April. Cumming posted an AI-generated image on her personal Facebook account depicting Scott smoking a cigar, holding a drink, and clutching designer shopping bags beside a suitcase of cash, linked to a YouTube video containing misinformation about the city budget. Merrill filed a formal letter with the city’s Board of Ethics and Cumming’s own advisory board, calling the post “deeply inappropriate, misleading, damaging, and racist.”
Scott, who is Black, said the imagery echoed old racist caricatures. “Anybody that looks at that image knows it was AI,” he said, adding that he did not believe Cumming’s later claim she hadn’t recognized it as fabricated.
State Senate President Bill Ferguson weighed in publicly as well, writing that the choice to “publicly post insulting and offensive content” toward a sitting mayor undermined public trust in an office built on impartiality.
Cumming took the post down and, two days later, issued a written apology, saying she had not realized the image was AI-generated and had removed it once she did.
Merrill’s complaint also flagged other posts, including a reshare of commentary from conservative influencer Nick Shirley and material from the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which Merrill’s letter described as Koch-funded. Cumming told reporters she reposted the Shirley content because she views him as a fraud fighter, and removed it once it drew criticism as political.
- Cumming’s advisory board and the city’s Board of Ethics received the complaint but have not publicly announced findings.
- Cumming has said she isn’t trying to be political and pulls down posts once they draw that kind of criticism.
- City rules require ethics complaints to stay confidential; this one became public after being leaked.
Where the money questions started
The access restrictions came in stages, well before the current appeal. In January, City Solicitor Ebony Thompson ended what the administration called the OIG’s “unfettered” access to Law Department records, after officials said they discovered the office could reach files the city considers protected by attorney-client and work-product privilege. Weeks later, the administration broadened those restrictions to a wider swath of city records, citing legal advice that it said subjected the OIG to Maryland Public Information Act restrictions.
The underlying subpoena fight traces to Cumming’s investigation of SideStep, a MONSE pilot program that ran from 2022 to 2024 and paid 15 contractors about $690,000 to work with city youth who’d had low-level police contact. Cumming’s report found that two contractors submitted fraudulent invoices, one altering documents to receive higher payments and another unable to produce records to support what it had billed; both findings were referred to law enforcement. The same investigation found a MONSE employee had emailed a spreadsheet identifying 700 youths, including birth dates and charges, to a relative’s personal Gmail account, a separate referral for potential violation of state law protecting juvenile records. MONSE’s director called the data-sharing incident unacceptable and said the agency was auditing its own invoices.
In May, Scott responded to the records fight with a package of proposed reforms rather than simply defending the access restrictions: a records “audit trail” system for OIG requests, a designated legal representative selected by the City Solicitor and approved by the OIG Advisory Board but firewalled from the rest of the Law Department once in place, and a push for state legislation carving inspectors general out of MPIA restrictions while adding mandatory oversight boards and periodic reviews. He also commissioned an outside firm, Baker Tilly, to independently review SideStep.
“What he proposes is not accountability, it is control.”
Cumming rejected the framing. “What he proposes is not accountability, it is control,” she said in a statement, arguing the outside review sidelines her office’s own authority. City Council President Zeke Cohen said the council was still reviewing the plan; Councilman Mark Conway, who had sponsored a since-stalled ballot measure to lock in the IG’s records access, called anything short of full restoration “a cosmetic measure designed to protect City Hall.”
What a law professor makes of the legal fight
Amy Sloan, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, said the city’s decision to seek an interlocutory appeal, effectively asking a higher court to step in before the case is finished, is a legitimate but unusual move. Once records are disclosed, she said, “it can’t be undisclosed,” which is the kind of situation where an appellate court may be more willing to intervene mid-case.
“Once records are disclosed, ‘it can’t be undisclosed.’”
What to Watch
Wednesday’s summary judgment hearing will test whether Judge White is prepared to resolve the underlying access dispute outright. Separately, watch whether the city’s Board of Ethics or Cumming’s own advisory board issues any findings on the April complaint, and whether Scott’s proposed state legislation gets traction in Annapolis. Neither side has signaled it is backing off.
Sources: This report draws on reporting by Emily Opilo and Justin Fenton of The Baltimore Banner (Aug. 27, 2026), Emily Opilo of The Baltimore Banner (March 17, April 21 and May 13, 2026, the last republished via WYPR), Mark Reutter of Baltimore Brew (April 22, 2026), and Baltimore Brew’s Sept. 9, 2026, report on Cumming’s response, along with the underlying letters and exhibits those outlets published from the case record, the City of Baltimore’s official May 13, 2026, press release on Mayor Scott’s oversight and transparency package, and Baltimore Brew’s same-day reporting on the Sept. 14, 2026, appellate order.
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